


Careful

by tiigi



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Possessive Behaviour, Stalking, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:40:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiigi/pseuds/tiigi
Summary: “What do you think happened, Eds?” Richie replies, not unkindly. Bill’s cheeks burn. Is he really that predictable? It’s embarrassing that he has to run to his friends every time Robert does something that upsets him. He’s going to start becoming more of a burden than a friend.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Pennywise, Bill Denbrough/Robert "Bob" Gray
Comments: 32
Kudos: 196





	Careful

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this if you can? It’s pretty dark but I had fun writing it :D
> 
> Translation into Russian available [here!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/10213477)

Bill spends the night at Richie’s apartment, curled up on the sofa with a tatty spare blanket bunched up around his ankles. He shivers and sweats his way through the night, and wakes up to raised voices coming from the kitchen.

Strictly speaking, Eddie doesn’t actually live with Richie. He shares his own shithole apartment with Stan a few blocks away, but he spends almost every night over here, draped in Richie’s college sweaters and raiding the fridge. Bill had considered it a blessing last night when he’d shown up on Richie’s doorway out of the blue, arms wrapped around himself to rub the goosebumps away, to find that Richie was alone. He loves Eddie, but he was too exhausted to deal with the hurricane that would be an angry Eddie Kaspbrak.

It had been so cold last night when he’d had to leave. He’d been bare foot with only a t-shirt and a pair of jeans to fight off the cold wind. It had been pure luck, being able to find an empty cab in the early hours of the morning, and he’d had to get the driver to wait whilst he asked Richie to pay. That, Bill thinks now, had been the most humiliating thing. Despite promising to pay him back, Bill will never forget the pitying look Richie had levelled at him in that moment.

And now, apparently, he has called Eddie to share Bill’s news. Or maybe that’s unfair of him. Eddie is around here a lot, and it’s not unlikely that he came over to see Richie only to spot Bill, bruised and curled up on the couch, and put the pieces together. It’s not a difficult picture to paint, and Eddie has seen it all before. Bill’s lucky Beverly isn’t here, or he’d really have a problem.

“What the fuck _happened?”_ Eddie hisses, far too loud to be secretive. There are a few other noises as well: beeping and shuffling feet, probably Richie making coffee. “Did he show up like that? Did he say what happened?”

“What do you think happened, Eds?” Richie replies, not unkindly. Bill’s cheeks burn. Is he really that predictable? It’s embarrassing that he has to run to his friends every time Robert does something that upsets him. He’s going to start becoming more of a burden than a friend.

There’s a pause in which Bill can practically hear Eddie’s thoughts: a multitude of threats and desperate questions. Then, “We can’t let him go back this time.” His voice is steely and if it were anyone else they wouldn’t dare argue with him, but Richie has always seemed immune to the Kaspbrak Glare.

“You wanna tie him to the couch? I don’t think we can make him stay, Eddie. He has to choose that on his own.” Has Richie always sounded so wise? Bill swallows the stinging lump in his throat and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from crying. It’s a tactic he uses often, because he knows it works.

“But he _won’t,_ Richie, you know that. What, you want to send him off to get beat up again? What if that psycho kills him? What if there is no next time? What then?” Eddie sounds so sincerely worried about the possibility of Bill being murdered that it sends an icy pang of terror shuddering through Bill’s chest and striking his heart.

He can’t listen to anymore of this or he thinks he might be sick. He hasn’t eaten anything since lunchtime yesterday so he would just be vomiting coffee onto Richie’s carpet, which nobody wants. Bill makes a lot of noise standing up and folding his blanket up so that they know he’s awake.

Sure enough, the conversation tapers off into silence and there’s a scuffle. Eddie bursts into the room, closely followed by a red faced Richie. 

“Bill,” Eddie breathes, eyes zeroing in on the wine stain bruise colouring Bill’s cheekbone. There’s a small cut over his left eyebrow that actually hurts more, but it’s hardly noticeable and he doesn’t want his friends to know how bad it is by asking for a painkiller.

“Hey, guys. Sorry about having to crash and everything.” _Don’t ask me, please don’t ask me,_ he prays. _I’m all out of excuses._

“You know my bed is always open for you, Big Bill.” Richie grins, lips stretched a little too wide to be genuine. He’s clasping a mug of coffee in both hands; steam drifts upwards in little wisps and fogs up his glasses.

“Then why’d I bust my b-back on your sofa, huh?” Bill offers Richie a crooked grin which seems to put him at ease. Richie has never really known how to act in serious situations. Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t seem as convinced. He narrows his eyes and steps backwards deliberately onto Richie’s foot. Richie yelps.

“Um, so,” He flounders, looking to Eddie for approval and then Bill for confirmation that he isn’t crossing a line. “You– you alright, Big Bill?”

“Yeah,” Bill swallows, mouth too dry. He needs a glass of water, but if he asks for one now then it’ll look like he’s avoiding the discussion, and whilst avoiding the discussion does sound pretty great, he doesn’t want to give his friends reason to be any more worried than they already are.

“Yeah,” He continues, trying to sound genuine now. “I’m really sorry about last night. I was getting really f-fucked up and couldn’t find my phone. I just sort of j-jumped in a cab.”

Richie knows this is not true, and Bill knows he knows, because last night when he arrived he had been sobbing and whimpering, ‘ _it happened again, I’m so sorry, it happened again.’_ Bill also knows that Richie won’t throw him under the bus, at least not with Bill standing right in front of him.

Even so, he can’t meet Richie’s eye as he lies. Instead he watches Eddie’s reaction, the twitching lips and suspiciously red eyes. He hates hurting his friends like this. He should never have come here, but he’d been so scared, spurred on by an unstoppable confidence that seems to have left him entirely now.

In its place, there’s cold, curling dread in the pit of his stomach.

“What made him angry this time?” Eddie asks simply. Bill flinches, a subconscious reaction to being called out on a lie.

“I don’t know what you m-mean.” His voice breaks on the last word. He doesn’t sound very believable, even to his own ears. Richie sighs into his coffee. Bill wants to cover his bruises just so he could stop feeling so exposed, so vulnerable, just pull the collar of his shirt up over his neck and jaw, hide his face in a cushion. He hates them looking at him like that, horrified and angry.

“You can’t go back to him.” Eddie tells him, repeating what he’d said earlier. He says this every time, and every time the only difference it makes is that Bill feels sickeningly guilty.

Bill says nothing. Instead, he pushes past them both and heads for the bathroom. He has to throw up.

***

When Robert calls for the sixth time in half an hour, Richie tries to make Bill block his number. 

Eddie is gone, he left for class with the promise that he would be back in two hours and that Bill better still be here when he gets back. Bill feels, when it’s just him and Richie, that he can speak more openly. Richie doesn’t know how to tell him what he should be doing with his life, not like Eddie does.

“I can’t.” Bill swallows back anxiety, hands trembling as he turns his phone face down onto the kitchen counter. “If I don’t reply soon, he’ll just come and find me.”

This is true, and Richie knows it from previous examples. This is not, however, the real reason Bill won’t block his number. That is just because he knows it won’t do any good; Robert has an entire drawer of different phones in his office that he will use to contact Bill. He has software on Bill’s phone that gives him access to all sorts of private things. Bill is only able to avoid Robert now because Robert is allowing him to, but as soon as he runs out of patience Bill will have to cooperate or else.

If Bill had to guess, he’d say Robert is feeling guilty about how their argument went down. Otherwise he wouldn’t be giving Bill so much time to recuperate away from him, and Richie’s door would already be loose on its hinges. 

In truth, Bill is starting to miss Robert. He hasn’t been away for him for this long in months, not since the last incident caused him to run away. It’s only been twelve or so hours, but Robert will have been awake every minute of them. Bill’s time is running out.

“Dude,” the word escapes on a pained exhale. Richie rubs his eyes under his glasses and furrows his eyebrows. “Go to the police. You don’t have to put up with his shit. You know that, right? We’ll all be here to support you.”

Bill’s phone buzzes with a new message. Bill reaches for it instinctively but Richie is faster, hand flying across the surface to grab it. He reads the message quickly, eyes skimming over the screen, before his nose wrinkles up in disgust.

“This is fucked up, Bill.” He tells him quietly, as though Bill doesn’t know that already.

Bill snatches his phone away in a flurry of panic and irritation, eager to see what Robert has said. Will he apologise, or will this message be another display of his anger? Or– will Robert have sent him something else, one of his funny messages that always gets Bill confusedly aroused and scared? Is that why Richie looks so uncomfortable?

But his screen is blank. Richie has cleared the notification, and he can’t open it without Robert seeing that Bill has read the message. His heart sinks as he places the phone face down against the counter again, determined not to touch it, no matter what happens.

“I love him, Richie.” Bill tells him honestly, dejectedly. “And he loves me. I know it’s fucked up, okay? B-But that’s how it is.”

Richie shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Bill supposes that makes sense; if it was one one of his friends sitting here and saying the same things he’s saying now, Bill wouldn’t just accept it and move on. But at the same time, he knows that they don’t understand. Bill _does_ love Robert, and Robert _does_ love Bill, in a dark, possessive passion. 

Bill can’t leave Robert behind, not when Robert is everything he’s ever known. Whether or not this happens again, whether or not it’s just a blip in the journey of their relationship, he knows he’ll end up back in the same place he started: with Robert.

Later, after Eddie has returned and they have both disappeared into Richie’s bedroom, Bill caves. He’s unlocking his phone and bringing up Robert’s chain of messages before he can talk himself out of it, or before either of his friends can zap into the room with their psychic powers and steal his phone.

_01:38 - Don’t be ridiculous. Come back._

_02:12 - Do you really want me to come and get you? Because I will, Billy._

_02:23 - You’re just making things worse. Stop being so childish._

_04:28 - Do you think ignoring my calls is going to keep me away? Tell Tozier if he tries to keep me out like last time I’ll break more than just his door._

There’s a long pause there, as though Robert was reevaluating the circumstances and coming to a different conclusion. Bill knows he won’t have been sleeping, though he has no idea what else he’d be doing. 

_08:46 - I hope you slept well. I know how rough Richie’s couch is, let me give you a massage when you get back? I love you_

_09:04 - I have a present for you when you get home. You know how difficult it is to buy non seasonal wrapping paper at five in the morning? I bought in bulk so that we’d have enough for Stan’s birthday next month. Love you_

_10:31 - I hope you aren’t missing your classes Billy. Don’t be irresponsible because of our fight._

Then, just a few moments ago:

_12:40 - You looked so beautiful last night. I can’t wait to make love to you again._

Bill’s heart quickens and his dick gives an interested twitch, thickening up quickly like it always does when Robert says ‘make love’. It’s just so unlike him. Robert doesn’t usually make love to Bill– he fucks Bill, rough and fast. He teases Bill until he can’t take any more and he thinks he’s about to pass out. 

But ever so often, usually after a big fight like this, Robert will make love to Bill. He’ll kiss along Bill’s shoulders and slip Bill’s clothes off with gentle, delicate fingers. He’ll stretch Bill out on the bed and lick down his body, working up to three fingers before he slides inside him, so slowly and so, so deep. Bill will let out a gasping, squeaking moan because it just feels so intense, so intimate.

Robert will thrust in slow and careful, sucking on Bill’s tongue, until Bill comes untouched between their bodies. Those are the times Bill will never forget, and the reference to what he has to look forward to upon return has him hardening in his pants already.

He knows Robert will be able to see that his messages have been read, but he doesn’t know how he can reply to them anyway. He doesn’t, in the end, just turns his phone off and gives himself a pat on the back for having so much self control.

***

Bill goes to his afternoon class, because he skipped his morning tutorial and he can’t afford to let his attendance drop too far. He knows he won’t be able to concentrate at all, but the girl that sits next to Bill takes one sympathetic look at him and offers to email him her notes on the lecture. He thanks her and pulls his hood up, resting his chin in his palm and letting his mind wander. He hopes his bruises aren’t too noticeable.

He hasn’t been writing much lately. That’s the whole reason he came to university and did a stupid creative writing degree, in order to write stories, to get published. Yet somehow, now he’s here and doing what he’s always wanted to do, he finds it more impossible than ever to concentrate on one plot for more than five minutes. Red strings of fiction trail off into snipped, frayed ends. He’s been sleeping a lot more lately.

That’s because of Robert, Bill knows, and feels sickeningly guilty admitting to himself. Sometimes he thinks Robert is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and that he’s thankful for everything that he gets from him because at least he has Robert’s attention. He presses a tentative finger against the bruise spilling across his jaw and sucks in a hissing breath through his teeth at the dull ache it brings.

There are other times, like last night, where Bill will simmer with fury until it all boils over and he explodes. On those occasions he will leave, run out barefoot and show up at Richie’s place in tears. He’ll convince himself that he’s going to leave Robert for good this time, that he won’t go back there and let himself be hurt ever again. Then he goes back, always, every time.

Robert is a master at manipulation. He doesn’t just use fear or love or intimidation, he uses all of them at once. Bill is constantly surrounded by Robert in every aspect of his life, he never knows how to feel, he can never settle into one clear feeling. It’s the only kind of life he can accept, now.

The lecture finishes whilst Bill is half asleep. He only knows by checking his phone that an hour has passed and he rubs his eyes, blinking himself awake properly. Audra - Bill thinks that’s her name, though he can’t be sure, and he can’t get her number or Robert would be angry - shoots him an awkward smile. She promises to email him the notes she has taken and he thanks her with as much enthusiasm as he can muster.

It’s a short walk from campus to Richie’s apartment, but it’s getting dark already and Bill feels distinctly uncomfortable. The hairs along his arms stand on end and the back of his neck prickles with the sensation of being watched. 

Robert, Bill realises with nauseas excitement, is here. Watching him. He won’t come and get Bill because he never does, because he’s going to wait until Bill comes back on his own, because it’s more humiliating that way. But he’s here watching, waiting, making sure Bill gets from place to place safely. He cares. 

Longing makes Bill’s heart ache. He wants to spin around, to confront Robert, to run into his arms.

And suddenly his phone rings. He jumps, heart rate spiking, fingers fumbling for his phone as the hazy spell is broken. He feels overwhelmed by this sudden clarity and disgusted with how close he had been to caving already.

Bill answers the phone and swallows repeatedly, trying to keep the tears at bay. He’s grateful for the distraction. He keeps Richie on the line until he’s inside and back in the apartment, and the feeling fades.

***

Bill’s phone rings in the early hours of the morning. He’s sleeping on the couch again, and this time he has to be extra quiet because Eddie is sleeping over. They’d had a pleasant evening, eating dinner together and then watching a movie. It had only been a little awkward, ignoring the elephant in the room, but thankfully no one had asked Bill how long he would be staying. He honestly has no idea.

He reaches for his phone and yawns as he checks the caller ID. He knows who it’s going to be before he sees, of course, because there’s only one person who would call him in the middle of the night, and seeing Robert’s name flash across the screen only confirms the thought.

Bill answers. He doesn’t even think about it, doesn’t wonder if perhaps he is making a mistake. He just clicks ‘answer’ and waits for Robert’s voice. It doesn’t come. It seems Robert is going to make him speak first.

“Hi,” he murmurs, quiet so as not to wake the others. He can hear Robert breathing on the other end of the line, and it excites him and scares him at the same time. 

“Billy,” Robert speaks finally. His voice is so familiar and so strangely comforting. Bill wants to be sick. He presses down on his neck, over the bruises, so he doesn’t forget why he’s here. 

“I m-missed you.” Bill says in a small, pathetic, wavering voice. Robert sighs over the phone and Bill’s ears burn in shame. It’s bad that he ran away from Robert in the first place but it’s even worse, even more embarrassing, that he comes crawling back so eagerly, so desperately. Robert knows this.

“Then come home, Billy.” He tells Bill calmly, placatingly. “You belong here. With me. You know that, don’t you?”

“It’s the middle of the n-night,” he whispers, wondering at this point who he is trying to convince. 

“There’s a car outside.” Robert tells him, voice clear and authoritative. It always helps Bill think when Robert gets like this, because he isn’t able to argue and he doesn’t have to make his own decision. He’s free, almost, in his captivity.

“Write Richie a note. Get your things and then get in the car. Come home, Billy.”

“Are you in the car?” Bill asks, already knowing the answer doesn’t matter. He’ll go anyway, he’ll return every time, he’ll do whatever Robert asks of him.

“Why don’t you come and find out?” Robert asks.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! <3


End file.
